Creating interactive spreadsheets to provide immediate feedback

Features available with electronic spreadsheets enable accounting educators to create interactive spreadsheets that provide students with immediate feedback regarding the accuracy of their solutions. Providing immediate feedback using an answer-until-correct approach can help students acquire and retain knowledge. In this approach students open an incomplete spreadsheet and create formulas to complete the accounting problem. Correct solutions are denoted by a change in font color. Security features prevent students from locating the correct answers stored in an adjacent area. Problems illustrated in this paper relate to principles of financial accounting. However, interactive spreadsheets can also be used in other accounting courses such as managerial, cost, and intermediate accounting.